Meriton Suites Files Amended Plans for Canberra Hotel

Harry Triguboff’s Meriton Suites hotel brand has filed amendments to the plans for its Canberra CBD hotel. 

The 1734sq m site at 40 Allara Street in Canberra’s civic precinct was sold to Triguboff in July 2019. 

Triguboff bought the site on the corner of Allara and Nangari streets for $23 million from the Australian Unity Property Income Fund.

The off-market sale was handled through Andrew Stewart and Nick Purdue of Savills. 

The site was previously tenanted by the Australian government with a six-storey office building on the property. 

At the time, it marked the first time the Meriton Suites brand had entered the Canberra market but Triguboff felt it was a good investment. 

“Canberra has long been on our radar because it’s drawing nearly three million visitors a year,” Triguboff told The Urban Developer in 2019. 

“Many people going there are on business, often politics related, and visit for multiple nights.”

Fender Katsaldis Architects designed the plans for the Meriton Suites hotel with approval granted for the project in mid 2021. 

The original plans included 16 storeys over two basement car parking levels with commercial tenancies and serviced apartments and a pool and gym on levels 14 and 15.
There are 207 suites ranging from studios to three-bedroom apartments. 

The one-bedroom suites will make up about 70 per cent of the rooms and one- and two-bedroom suites will be on the first 11 levels.

The three retail tenancies were on the ground floor of the 50 metre-tall-building, with two luxury penthouse suites on the top floor. 

There will be a total of 65 car parking spaces across the two basement levels.

▲ Canberra's first Meriton Suites hotel is set to open in April 2023.

The new changes include the reconfiguration of the ground floor layout, a setback from Allara Street, certain bedroom and kitchen modifications, changes to the pool and spa areas and a redesign of the three-bedroom penthouse. 

The facade will also change slightly with the removal of frosted glazing and a colour change for some elements including the ground floor columns. 

The company is expecting to open the hotel in April 2023. 

Triguboff launched the Meriton Suites hotel brand in 2003 and started his career in construction 60 years ago building high-rise towers for affordable apartments. 

Earlier this year, the 18-storey Park Avenue apartment residents neighbouring the site said that they had not been adequately consulted prior to the planning approval being granted as their building had not been completed yet and they had not moved in.